Missive the Thirty-Fifth
Euterpe, a Cessna,
The Black Helicopter.
DATELINE: Tuesday, November 14, 2000, at 2100 hours CDT.
Conway, Arkansas, USA
By D. Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles
CornDancer & Company
They think it's because I'm trapped here in the hermitage, isolated with nowhere to go. That's the reason for the obscurity, the hard-to-approach voice I stumble upon after the descent. Balderdash.
I was deep into the werewolf legend when the Presidential Election intervened. I can't get it back, the wolf bane and the rage. Halloween faded all too quickly in the heat of the campaign; now I've got to contemplate the familial gravity of Thanksgiving.
Maybe the voice will become better, clearer, more grounded. To my credit I have quit listening to William Faulkner. I got all the way to Tennessee before the journey ended. Then there is the case presented by the dusty wanderer, who sought to push me toward Dostoyevsky and some kind of cryptic underground. I had to refuse him. I cannot abide the translations.
Digress, Allude, Steal the Arcane Formulas.
So what if they tell me they cannot read me. I'll drink at them, drink at her, drink at the best of 'em! I'll digress and allude. I'll steal more of the arcane formulas from the besotted old wizard, who inhabits the ditch behind the sanctuary. I'll make mixes, slake my thirst, stumble deeper into the artificial abyss. I'll make sure none of them can approach me.
Why do they jump on the fallen one, kick her when she's down, bleeding and groveling on the street? They are like hungry dogs at the hunt, snarling and tearing at the fallen and helpless prey; like rioters in the metropolis, kicking and spitting at their grounded foe. They grind his face into the shards of shattered plate-glass on the sidewalk.
Why can't they be like the angel, who lifts his arms high into the blue heavens to silence the mob and still the pack, who rescues the fallen and beaten souls from the clutches of their tormentors?
At one time the scene was filled with shouting, a great clamor, chants of protest. In its place, erasing the confusion, the angel interjects the joy of music, the softly jangling melody of the spheres. The scene becomes pacific. A dreamer on the veldt writes a ballad of utopia.
Can They Imagine What It Would Be Like?
Can they imagine in their daily connectedness, in the discourse they share in the marketplace and the academy, the arena and the asylum…. Can they imagine what it would be like to be driven out into the cold, the stone cold?
I mean, the garbage men in a noisy truck changed their schedule without telling us, came by before their appointed time. Tons of maggot-infested detritus are piled in torn bags on the edges of the lane. You have to step around it, gag at the stench. Only the good fortune of last night's freeze will keep the pile from drawing flies.
In the garden, Euterpe comes to soothe us, playing her chimes on Borealis' breath. Not even the whine of the Cessna's propellers, or the chatter of the black helicopter with its wounded passenger, or the exploding mortar shells can oer'come the melody she plays. She looks like Janis Joplin, plays like the harpist at Glory's gate.
I know I wasn't awake. I know they were tricking me. The crows and the jays are sniping at one another. I was almost there in Nod, almost back asleep, almost able to slumber again. Now I have to listen to their quarrel.
The Starter Packs a Pistol Loaded with Blanks.
It doesn't take much moxie to enter the fray after you're poised to hear the starter's pistol. It is loaded with blanks. The starter's big belly hangs over a thick black belt of polished leather. He wears the uniform of an overseer. Horror of horrors, the announcer proclaims: Look at him. He's putting the pistol to his left temple, right there in the arena, one foot in the cinders, his psyche naked before the hundred-thousand throng. Bang! The racers leap from their blocks, but the starter falls to the turf. Gasp! Look! O my gawd, did you see that? Horror of horrors, echoes of echoes, moans and groans, but…. But…. No blood! Only powder burns on a battered temple. The hundred thousand see the starter sit-up on the grass and mock them. They raise a great chorus of boos.
Why? He would not die for them.
Ten p.m. and he's not even driven to distraction by their taunts and insults. Would you drive him there if he stuck out a thumb, asked you for a ride?
Ten O One and he clings to resentment. Maybe he can, but I can't. Resentment is a luxury I cannot afford. They tell me it will drive me to drink. If I must, then I want the first drink to be a black and tan, cool Guinness stout drawn from the tap and blended with a pale bottled ale. Right there at the bar on Portobello Road. Tomorrow. I think I'll wait 'till tomorrow.
Ten O Four and he hears the hammer, the blades of the oscillating fan, the voice of the BBC newsreader: "… the votes unusable and compiled in confusion." Maybe you thought he was talking about Florida, about the United States of America, but this voice was broadcast in October. They were found in the Ivory Coast, the stacks of unusable votes. That night, just outside the capital city, bodies of young men were discovered stacked in a field. I could care less, saith the Cold Eye in the corner. I cast my absentee ballot for Félix Houphouët-Boigny. I didn't know any of the young men. They're too much dead to me.
Ten O Seven and we've gotten nowhere, but I had nowhere I wanted to go. How about you? Cricket Song is peaceful and mellow, so much so that it denies me a pathetic escape into domestic melodrama. Harmony is wonderful, but sometimes dull.
They Are Bent on Dying Sober.
I don't know where it comes from, don't much care. You wouldn't care either, were you incarcerated in a hermitage and encircled by the minions of Naziland. Rumor has it they're passing out pistols with magazines of blanks and instructions on how to intimidate the miscreants. I'm not goin' on some wild Ibis chase, not joining someone else's search for the source of the Nile. Denial is futile, say the enemy Borg. They are science-fiction characters, bent on assimilating the universe. Resistance is a river in Egypt, mumble the old heads at the recovery meeting. They are real men and women, bent on dying sober. It's all so tangled up in a funk that I ask you: Who cares? He does, that old crank over there, sitting 'neath the television set, staring back at the watchers. He cares about their health, their opinions. I've seen him, wearing the cares as his burden, wearing them like burned skin beneath the leafy palms, the palmettos.
The reason they want something to happen is terminal boredom. The starter tried to give it to 'em, but he didn't bleed. Material prosperity is not sufficient. They'd just as soon see institutions tumble, the economy crash into depression rather than face the emptiness of private rooms and public dens, or enter a sanctuary where the Spirit has fled, a hearth without union.
"Due to Internet traffic issues in North America, many readers are unable to view their psyche. Please be advised that we are aware of the issue and that all oracles and prophets are currently alerted. As soon as the issues are resolved by the backbone providers, readers will once again be able to view one another's psychosis."
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